


Threads Untangled

by atlanticslide



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 08:11:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10532418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: “I dreamed of you, cold and alone in a cell.  I never imagined this, not once.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just some completely self-indulgent post-finale (so big fat SPOILERS if you haven't seen the series finale) reunion shmoopiness that probably glosses a bit too much over a few logistical things, but I couldn't shake a conversation I had about how, after the end of the finale, Flint could really use a hug and a nap, so.

He can’t breathe. His mouth is open and he’s gasping, sobbing, but he can’t seem to take in any air. And yet it feels as if he’s just coming up for the first time after being held underwater for too many long minutes.

Like the first real breath of air he’s had in years.

“How can this be?” Thomas whispers into neck before moving up to breathe warmth against his temple. “You’re… you look different and you _feel_ different but it’s you, you’re here. How are you here?”

Flint - James - the names, the identities, they’re tangled up in his head, and having Thomas in his arms only deepens the confusion. He has no idea who he is at the moment, but it doesn’t matter anyway; he can’t speak, he can’t quite breathe, his chest is too full, he feels as if he may collapse at any moment.

Thomas is alive. There really are no words for it.

Later - he’s got no idea how long, but long enough that they’ve been brought inside somewhere - he finds himself standing before a well-dressed man with an air of authority who drones on about rules, regulations, things that he can’t find it in himself to focus on at the moment. Thomas is beside him, a hand at the small of his back. That’s all he can really take in at the moment - Thomas, alive, breathing, touching him, _alive_. Nothing else really matters for the time being. 

Later still, he’s in a set of barracks - slaves’ quarters, he hears vaguely, and tomorrow perhaps he’ll bristle at the word, _slaves_ , but, as with most everything else of the past few hours, he can’t quite take it in and can’t bring himself to care much beyond the small bed he’s been led to and the feel of Thomas’s hands pushing him down upon it.

“You can’t...” he says as Thomas follows him onto the bed - little more than a cot, far too small to comfortably fit two men of their stature, especially with how much more broad Thomas seems to be than he remembers (a thought that stirs something long dormant within him) - but Thomas hushes him with a soft sound and lays one arm across his shoulders, slots their legs together to allow them to fit precariously on the bed.

“It’s alright,” Thomas tells him softly, staring at him with an intensity that Flint had nearly forgotten - or James - or perhaps Flint had forgotten but James never could. He’s far too exhausted to make sense of any of it, but Thomas is here, in his arms, and perhaps the confusion is lifting, because what else could he really need but this moment for the rest of his life? 

“It’s alright,” Thomas says again, running gentle fingers over the back of his head, clearly searching for long locks that have long since been chopped away. “The others won’t pay us any mind.”

When he flicks his eyes away from Thomas’s gaze to take quick stock of the room, he finds that that’s not expressly true - several other men quickly shift their stares away from the two of them and appear to busy themselves with other tasks, but he’s got a keen enough sense to see when someone is trying very hard to look disinterested 

He should care. Captain Flint would care. There are so many things he should be doing right now, _would_ be doing if this were merely a week ago - check the exits, take stock of what within arm’s reach might be used for a weapon, suss out any weaknesses in the men making up the rest of the room - but Thomas’s arms are around him and even with a decade of distance between them, he knows implicitly that he can trust that hold, trust those words, and he wants so badly to close his eyes and to rest.

Rest, for the first time in what seems like years. 

“You’re here,” Thomas whispers, bringing his attention back to the man holding him. “I dreamed of this so many times…”

“I… I dreamed of…” he wants to close his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to lose Thomas’s gaze again. “I dreamed of you, cold and alone in a cell. I never imagined this, not once.”

“James,” Thomas starts, and James, or Flint, or whoever he is, he flinches, no idea who he truly is. 

“You were dead,” he tells Thomas. The words earn him a stroke of those familiar fingers against his cheek. “When we received word that you’d died, I was mad with grief. I’ve done things…” he trails off, unable to put words to Captain Flint, Miranda, the Urca gold and the War on England, on Civilization. 

He’ll tell Thomas eventually. Reality is beginning to settle into his bones now, despite his exhaustion, despite his inability to even give himself a name - he’s here, Thomas is here, and there’s life within them, life laid out before them, and when he’s regained some of his wits and some of the strength drained away by the recent weeks’ events, he’ll look Thomas in the eye and tell him about Peter’s betrayal and Miranda’s murder and everything in between, and he’ll listen as Thomas tells him of his own life during their time apart.

Now, though, it’s too much to voice, the man he’s been in Thomas’s absence and the people he’s lost, the lives he’s taken himself, the purpose and the goals and plans that have been laid to waste and the destruction he’s left in his own wake. 

He knows, though, with the same certainty he knows of the beating of his own heart, that Thomas will remain at his side just as he’ll remain at Thomas’s. 

He also knows, as Thomas pulls him closer and he comes to rest his head against Thomas’s chest, listens for the other man’s heart, that the walls of this plantation, the walls of slavery, can’t hold Captain Flint for long. Whoever he is now, Flint is forever a part of him, and wherever they may end up, it will be far from here. 

And together. 

**_end_ **


End file.
